I’m looking at building functionality similar to Amazon’s Appstore installation flow (http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000626391&ref=mas_gs) to get a user to install an apk without going through Google’s App Market.
Basically, I would like to provide a web page form that accepts an email or phone number. In Amazon’s case, when the user enters a phone number, it sends a notification to the phone with an actionable link that can be used to finally install an apk.
To build something similar, what is the best way to actually implement this so that the user receives an Android notification that is non-intrusive, but noticeable enough that they can expand it to complete the install process?
Note that at this point, the user does not yet have any version of the target app installed yet, so it’s solely reliant on the user providing a phone number to reach them.
First Option:
You would need some kind of integration on your web site to be able to send sms.
A quick google search returned a site with a list of some possible services that can let you do that: http://mashable.com/2008/04/19/send-text-messages/
And you would sms a direct download link to the application wherever it’s stored on your server.
Then they would download and install it.
Second Option:
Say screw the phone number business, and just have them click a download link on the website.
Third option:
Use email.
This link, another one I grabbed from google, might help with that: How do I send email from my website?
I don’t really think there’s any other way to do it, but I have never done web programming (other than simple html), so I don’t really know that much on this topic.